Repairs relocate criminal court hearings

Friday

Nov 23, 2012 at 12:01 AMNov 23, 2012 at 5:13 PM

Michael D. Abernethy/Times-News

GRAHAM — Courtrooms in the Alamance County Criminal Courts building are temporarily closed due to maintenance.

District and superior court hearings will be held farther east on Elm Street, in the Courthouse Annex and in the Alamance County Historic Courthouse, until Thursday or until repairs of the building’s HVAC system are completed.

According to a sign posted at the criminal courts building entrance, all district court appearances scheduled for courtroom A or B will be held at the historic courthouse. First appearances are being held at 2 p.m. daily in District Courtroom A inside the criminal courts building despite the ongoing repairs.

For years, the heating and cooling system in the criminal courts building has been unreliable at best, chilling portions of the building to teeth-chattering temperatures while heating others to within a hair’s breadth of spontaneous combustion. Thanks to a worn-out system, the heating and cooling usually had little to do with outside temperatures.

Alamance County Maintenance Director Richard Hill says these repairs will put an end to the building’s unpredictable temperatures.

Parts of the system have failed, causing the valves that should automatically blow heated and cooled air into the building to stick. Maintenance crews were often called in to physically open and close those valves, Hill said.

The $35,000 repairs should be complete later this week. The Alamance County Board of Commissioners approved spending from the county’s facilities improvement budget last month. Additional minor costs will come from the maintenance budget.

Crews are removing the old piping, valves, actuators and temperature gauges and replacing the system’s electrical wiring.

Most of the infrastructure work was completed Wednesday afternoon. Wiring will be done Monday and Tuesday. Hill expects the HVAC system there to be running by mid-week.